Decoding Population Activity During Sensory Adaptation

描述（由申请人提供）：视觉系统神经科学的一个主要目标是了解视觉信息是如何被感觉皮质神经元编码的，以及它们的活动是如何被解码以指导行为的。众所周知，视觉经验（适应）的近代历史常常深刻地影响个体神经元的反应以及被试的感知判断。因此，要全面了解视觉系统如何在不同的自然环境中产生感知和行为，就需要确定感觉适应如何影响神经元群体对视觉信息的编码和解码。我们将使用慢性多电极阵列来同时记录猕猴V1区数十个神经元的活动，同时动物执行明确的感知任务。首先，我们将通过测量非适应状态和适应状态下皮层网络活动的结构来描述适应影响神经元群体中信息表征的方式。其次，我们将通过将种群活动的一次又一次波动与动物的感知决策联系起来，解决在非适应和适应的感觉状态下网络活动是如何解码的。这项研究将阐明神经回路中的活动是如何被最近的视觉经验改变的，以及下游决策区域如何解释这种可塑性。为了解决视觉系统内的计算如何适应感官环境的最新变化，需要彻底了解适应如何影响视觉信息的编码和神经活动的解码。在一个已知生理和解剖特性的皮层区域内，对这些影响的基本知识将有助于识别由于各种精神障碍而导致的异常感觉功能。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A major goal of visual systems neuroscience understands how visual information is encoded by sensory cortical neurons and how their activity is then decoded to guide behavior. It is well known that the recent history of visual experience (adaptation) can often profoundly influence both the responses of individual neurons as well as subjects' perceptual judgments. Thus, a comprehensive understanding of how the visual system gives rise to perception and behavior in diverse natural environments requires determining how sensory adaptation affects the encoding and decoding of visual information by populations of neurons. We will address these questions using chronic multi-electrode arrays to simultaneously record the activity of dozens of neurons in area V1 of macaque monkeys, while animals perform a well-defined perceptual task. First, we will characterize the way in which adaptation influences the representation of information in the neuronal population, by measuring the structure of cortical network activity in un-adapted and adapted states. Second, we will address how that network activity is decoded in both un-adapted and adapted sensory states, by relating trial-by-trial fluctuations in population activity to the animal's perceptual decisions This study will elucidate how activity in neural circuits is altered by recent visual experience, ad how downstream decision areas interpret this plasticity. A thorough understanding of how adaptation influences the encoding of visual information and the decoding of neural activity is needed to address how computations within the visual system accommodate recent changes in the sensory environment. Basic knowledge of these influences within a cortical region whose physiological and anatomical properties are well-known will aid in identifying aberrant sensory function due to various mental disorders.